The Day The World Changed Forever

There are three dates in modern history that people always remember exactly where they were and exactly what they were doing when these significant events took place. The first is December 7, 1941, the day Japanese naval and air forces attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and plunged the nation into World War II. The second is November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, ending the era in our nation known as "Camelot." And the third is September 11, 2001, the day radical Muslim terrorists hijacked four civilian airliners filled with innocent Americans and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with the last crashing in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers attacked the hijackers.

This one event, this one heinous, unbelievably evil event, changed our world forever.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001 I was working as the Assistant Security Director for Macy*s in the Garden State Plaza, Paramus, New Jersey. At 8:46AM I was walking through the store with a member of the Macy*s Evaluation Team who was there inspecting the security program for our store. We had just finished testing the EAS system at the 2nd floor mall level entrance when my wife, Gina, called me on the phone. She told me that she had just heard that an aircraft, a civilian passenger liner, had crashed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. I excused myself from the evaluator and went down to the employee's lounge to watch the live broadcast on TV. I had been to New York City many times with Gina and was familiar with the World Trade Center and the beauty of the Twin Towers, so I was fairly stunned at the picture I saw - one of the towers burning, a long plume of smoke stretching out over the Hudson River as the building burned. At 9:03AM I was just asking myself how in the world something like this could have happened as I was staring at the screen when suddenly a second airliner appeared from the left side of the screen and slammed directly into the second tower. The room was instantly filled with anguished cries of dismay and surprise from the associates who were there, and I found myself standing there with my mouth open.

I knew instantly that this was no accident. We were under attack, and had no idea by who or why.

Then my phone rang again; it was Gina, who was breathless and near tears as she said, "Did you see it? Another plane crashed into the other tower!"

"I saw it, baby," I replied in a very quiet voice, my eyes still glued to the TV screen in the lounge. "And this is no accident. We're under attack, I'm sure of it." Thirty four minutes later all doubts held by anyone as to whether or not this was a deliberate attack vanished when a third airliner struck the Pentagon. Sixteen minutes later a fourth airliner went down in Pennsylvania, with the target later being discovered to have been Washington, DC.

At 9:59AM the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, with the North Tower collapsing at 10:28AM. 2,996 people, including 343 NYC firefighters and 72 NYC and Transit Authority police officers, died.

And at that moment in time, our world changed forever.

I don't remember much of the rest of the day. I do remember going back down to the employee lounge every chance I got to look at the TV and see what else was going on, and by the end of the day I was almost in tears. How anyone could commit such a despicable atrocity on innocent people simply astounded me.

Later that night I got a call from my immediate supervisor, the Director of Security for the store, who informed me that the Vice President for Security of Macy*s feared that more terrorist attacks would be coming and that the Herald Square Macy*s would be a likely target as it was the flagship store for the chain and was the world headquarters for Macy*s. The VP had directed that every Security unit in every store in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut send their Assistant Directors to the Herald Square store to augment security there starting the next day. This meant a 2 hour car trip to the NY Waterways Ferry Terminal in Hoboken for me, followed by a ferry ride across the Hudson and a bus ride to the store - all told, about a 3 hour trip one way. But I understood why it needed to be done, so the next day I got up extra early, put on my suit, got in the car, and headed out to New York City and the Herald Square Store.

After arriving at the terminal and purchasing my ticket, I went to the end of the building that faced the river and the docks where the ferries came and went. That wall of the terminal was glass from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and always gave a spectacular view of New York City with the Twin Towers sitting on the right side of the landscape, near the end of the island. As I walked up to the glass wall and looked out at the city across the river, I looked to the right and saw not the two majestic towers standing proudly in the New York City skyline, but a thick, heavy, and huge plume of smoke rising from where the towers had stood the day before. You could smell the smoke in the air coming across the parking lot, but to see it up close and personal was something entirely different.

I stood there for several long moments, looking at that plume of dark smoke rising into the sky, and thought just how terrible this whole thing had been. I tried to imagine what the people trapped in those towers had gone through - by now we had all seen the footage of people jumping and falling to their deaths rather than being burned alive - and my mind just couldn't grasp it. I said a quick, silent prayer for those lost and missing as the ferry pulled up to the dock, then got on board and went into the city.

The next day when I got to the ferry terminal and went to the back wall to look out at the city again, I noticed three or four flyers that had been taped to the glass. All of them had someone's picture on them, and they each said something like, "MISSING" or "HAVE YOU SEEN ME?" with the last known location being one of the two towers.

That day there were three or four. The next day there were ten times that many. By the end of the week you couldn't see out of the glass.

I stood there that day, looking at the faces of the thousands of people who were gone from this world in an instant, and suddenly the depth of the tragedy hit me. Each picture was an innocent life lost, and each picture meant there was at least one other person in this world who was looking for them, hoping against hope that they would be found, grieving already for the loved one they knew in their heart they had already lost.

I stood there in my green suit, dressed to the nines, briefcase in hand, staring at that wall of faces, and cried like a baby. And I wasn't the only one, either.

My first instinct was to go home and be with my wife, just be with her and revel in the fact that I was here, I was alive, and I was with her. Nearly three thousand people had gone to bed Monday night on September 10th thinking that the following day would be just another Tuesday, just another day at work, when it turned out to be anything but. I wanted to go home and be with my wife and tell her that I loved her, just because I could.

But she was at work, I had a job to do, and that's not the way I was. My military background kicked in about this time, so I wiped my face and eyes, picked up my briefcase from where I had dropped it on the floor, got on the ferry and went to do what I had to do.

But you better believe the first thing I did when I got home that night was hold Gina and tell her I love her.

Not a year goes by that I don't think of that wall and all those faces staring back at me from eternity. Every year on this day I think of where I was and what I was doing the day the world changed forever, and every year on this day I thank God that I'm still here.

And every year I find myself tearing up at the thought of all those lives so tragically snuffed out, and for the innocence our nation lost that day.

This year is no different.

Do me a favor, please; if not for me, for yourself. After you're done reading this, go find the one person in the world who you love the most and who makes your life worth living, and tell them you love them.

And if you won't do it for me or for yourself, then do it for the 2,996 people who can't.

Deo Vindice.

IHC

Things I Don't Understand

Been kicking around what I was going to do the first solo "TIDU" blog entry for the past week or so, but when I saw the headlines today it suddenly became a no-brainer. And to be honest, I should have figured this one out a long time ago.

NO, it's not going to be about The Buffoon In Chief. I've written enough about that incompetent clown already, don't you think? But there is one person, one political figure, that I don't think I've written about more than once, if ever. And I have no idea why I haven't written about this person more because this person is most certainly deserving of any and all amounts of criticism that I could ever throw in that direction.

And so here it is, friends and neighbors, without any further ado, my first solo topic for "Things I Don't Understand."

WHY PEOPLE SUPPORT "BILLARY" CLINTON.

The thing in the news today that centered my attention on "Billary" Clinton, also known as "The Wicked Bitch of the North," was her apology about using a second e-mail server, a private one, while she was Secretary of State. Never mind the fact that she wasn't supposed to do that, was prohibited by law from doing that, sent classified "TOP SECRET" information on that unsecured server which could have compromised national security, and then she had the server erased when she got caught. Never mind all that, especially the part about endangering national security. No, everything is just peachy-keen in Liberal Land today because the reigning Queen of All I Survey has said she made a mistake, and she's sorry.

She's SORRY. Man, THAT is the understatement of the year!

And here's the part I don't understand - people have just rolled over and forgiven her! "Oh, it's okay, no big deal, she compromised top secret information and endangered national security not to mention violating every oath of office she ever took, it's okay - SHE SAID SHE WAS SORRY."

The propensity for liberals and Democrats to just roll over and forgive those in their party for the most drastic and heinous of mistakes just never ceases to amaze me.

And the thing that really pisses me off is that if this was a Republican candidate who had done this, the liberal news media would be screaming for his/her head on a stick from the highest rooftops. But since it was The Annointed One it's just okay, you know? No big deal.

And meanwhile in Massachusetts, the capital of Liberal Land, an all-female choir has released a YouTube video in which they are singing an old religious hymnal about waking up with Jesus on their minds, except for one thing: they kicked out Jesus and substituted Hillary instead.

This just astounds me. How can anyone with an ounce of common sense and ANY kind of religious upbringing at all dare to remove Jesus from a hymn and substitute this bitch - or ANY politician, for that matter - in His place? The audacity of the liberals who drink the Kool-Aid served daily by this woman just astounds the living shit out of me.

And for the life of me, I can't figure out why people support her! I mean, really, just what the hell has she done to garner this kind of blind devotion and obligations? What has she done that has benefited the nation? Someone please name me one, just ONE, thing she got accomplished while she was Secretary of State. Just ONE, that's all I ask.

So just what DID she do while she was SoS? Well, there's this:

She lied about being "under sniper fire" on a visit to Bosnia. And then when she was called on it, she said she "misspoke." I just love how liberals make up words and terms to fit their agendas, don't you? Like "assault rifle," and "misspoke," things like that.

As we now know, she set up and used a private e-mail server and transmitted classified information over the unsecure server, breaking all kinds of federal laws about transmission of classified information and putting national security at risk.

She sat on her hands while good people were killed in Benghazi, and then when she was questioned about it she had the gall and the audacity to say, "AT THIS POINT, WHAT DOES IT MATTER?" I'm quite sure it matters a hell of a lot to the families and loved ones of the four Americans she let die. And then when the scandal first broke, she tried placing the blame on someone else and then outright lied about what she originally said.

She supported a United Nations bill that would pretty much nullify the Second Amendment, choosing to support the concept of a foreign nation over supporting the liberties and freedoms guaranteed us by the Constitution of the United States. If I'd been sitting in the White House on that day I'd have fired the bitch and then had her arrested and charged with treason. But that's just me.

But let's talk about the most latest things, shall we? Billary said today that she "made a mistake" when she decided to break Federal law and set up a private e-mail server over which she transmitted hundreds - HUNDREDS - of classified documents in an unsecured system.

Anyone who deals with classified information knows that this is much more than just "making a mistake." This is Handling of Classified Information 101, something I dealt with when I was in the Air Force. My point is this: if "Billary" made this simple and drastic of a mistake as Secretary of State, what mistake is she going to make as President? If we can't trust her to protect classified information, the handling of which is very clearly laid out in all kinds of Government regulations and laws, then how in the living hell can we trust her not to royally screw things up as President?

She's a liar, she's devoid of any and all morals, she's an egomaniac, she has NO sense of honor or decency, and people actually sing hymns about her and want to elect her President?

Are you friggin' kidding me? Really, are people THAT friggin' stupid? Apparently so.

It is my learned opinion that our current President is the absolute worst President in the history of our nation, a fact which I'm sure Jimmy Carter is just freakin' elated about. But trust me, friends and neighbors, if THIS bitch gets elected to the White House, she's gonna make Barry Sotero look like an amateur. And the really scary thing is that there's a very real chance this may happen. Just as people voted for NObama for the sole reason he's black, people will vote for "Billary" for the sole reason that she's a woman. After all, isn't it time we had a woman president? Like the gender of the candidate is a viable reason for supporting him/her and casting your vote that way. At least, to the liberals it is.

Excuse me while I go puke.

Deo Vindice.

IHC

An Empty September

It's September already - where the heck did the summer get to? - and this September feels so empty to me.

Why is that, you may ask? Well, it's very simple. For the first time in seven years - seven glorious, wonderful years - I don't have the next season of "Sons of Anarchy" to look forward to.

Call that silly if you want to, but to me SOA is more than just a television series. True, it was in my humble opinion the single best television series in the history of television, but to me it was also more than that. We moved to South Carolina in August of 2006, and the first year or so was pretty much settling in and trying to find our places in the grand scheme of things. About the time all of that started to come together, along came this new television series about a 1% motorcycle club (I refuse to use the word 'gang' because MCs are not 'gangs') called "Sons of Anarchy." Being a biker myself (although certainly not a 1%er) I took an immediate interest in it, and by the third episode of the new series I knew that FX was really onto something. The show was tough, gritty, funny, interesting, captivating, sad, violent, and happy all at the same time. It had a stellar cast and was written by a man who is nothing short of a genius, and I was instantly hooked. It was the most realistic show about a 1% MC that I had ever seen, and the more I watched it the more I loved it. And the more I loved it the more it became a part of my new life in South Carolina.

When the third (or maybe the fourth) season began, someone did an interview with the creator and writer/producer of the show, Kurt Sutter, and in that interview they asked him how long the show would last. He said in that interview that he really couldn't see it going any further than seven seasons, because by that time they would have pretty much done all that could be done. Sutter is also a student of the liberal arts and anyone who has any amount of schooling immediately recognized that SOA was modeled after "Hamlet." (And knowing that, by the way, meant that for 5 of those 7 years I knew that the show was going to end with the main character's death, which it did. Bummer.)

The main thing I loved about the show was the realism and the accuracy. They didn't do quite as much riding as I would have wanted them to do in the show, but knowing how tough it is to film action shots like that I understand why. Anyhow, Sutter said that he had researched the show for 18 months before writing it, spending time with three different 1% MCs to learn about The Life and how things were in an "outlaw" MC, and it showed. When he was asked about the graphic violence and the accuracy of what was portrayed on the show, if it was realistic or not, he said that it absolutely was and that FX wouldn't let him put everything he wanted on the air because it was TOO violent and graphic. By the time his research was over Sutter had such a deep understanding and deep respect for the clubs that he did a couple of things. First, when it came time to design the club's colors he made sure that no MC in existence used the color scheme that he wanted to use. There is no club out there that uses royal blue on white for their colors, so that's the color scheme that Sutter chose. Second, he had such a deep respect for what patched members had to go through as prospects to earn the right to wear the three-piece patch colors of their MC that he refused to allow FX to license anything that depicted all three pieces of the SOA's colors. You can buy a ton of stuff with the top rocker that says "SONS OF ANARCHY" and the grim reaper center patch, but you won't find ANY officially licensed product out there that displays the bottom rocker that says "CALIFORNIA" on it. Anything you see with all three patches is an unlicensed ripoff, and believe me there's a ton of it out there.

But aside from the show being an accurate, truthful, gritty depiction of life in an outlaw MC, it was the characters and the plot that made the show such a hit. As I said, the main basis of the show followed "Hamlet," but the twists and turns of the show as the seasons went on showed just what a creative genius writer Sutter truly is. That, and you never knew who was gonna die next. The premier of the third season showed one of the main characters, Deputy Chief Hale, getting run over and killed by a van being driven by a rival MC. This took me and a bunch of other people totally by surprise, almost as much as when the wife of one of the main characters was accidentally killed by an SOA member in Season 1.

Like I said, you never knew just who was gonna go next, although you were pretty sure that the main character, Jax, was gonna come to a violent and deadly end. And boy, did he. (No, I won't elaborate in case you haven't seen the series and plan on watching it after reading this.)

My wife, bless her heart, started the tradition of giving me the previous season's episodes on DVD for Christmas each year, and I'd spend the off months waiting for September and the season to start again by watching the previous year's season on DVD. And this past November after the show had completed its run I started watching the entire show again from beginning to end, catching the final season on Amazon Fire since the DVD wasn't out yet.

All told I've seen the entire series - all 7 seasons of it - a total of three times. And I plan on watching it again this month, kinda to help fight the withdrawals.

Then there was the music, the soundtrack for the show. Absolutely fantastic to say the least, with Katy Segal recording songs for quite a bit of it. (She was one of the Harlettes, the backup singers for Bette Midler in the '80's, you know, and has one hell of a voice.) Whoever designed the background music and decided on which song to feature for a specific, important event in the show is a pure genius. More than once I was brought to tears because of what was being shown and the music accompanying it, because the music just seemed so perfect. Go check out YouTube if you want some examples. Have a tissue handy.

But like the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. So now it's September and no "Sons of Anarchy" to look forward to. That show became such a part of my new life here in South Carolina that it's kinda just thrown my whole psyche off-track if you know what I mean. Oh, I'll get over it, but Tuesdays are gonna be kinda empty now as far as TV goes, know what I mean?

Thank God for DVDs.

Deo Vindice.

IHC